doodledee

• I learned that I can still be surprised by what people try and sell at the farmer's market. This time it was a husband and wife who had driven all the way from western North Dakota with a truck full of big landscape rocks to peddle to us city folk. The rocks were clinkers and they were awesome, but they were also heavy and expensive, so rather than buy one I just stood there and blabbed to anyone who would listen about how great geology is. Then I shopped for herbs.
• On another rock note, I learned that it would take a lot longer than 30 minutes to fill Lake Harriet with rocks. I know this because my kid threw pebbles into the lake for 30 minutes straight on Sunday and the water level didn't seem to rise at all. Huh.
• I learned that when you go to a Mexican restaurant and the cook has to come out from the kitchen to take your order because “he's the only one who can talk to the white people" that your order is probably going to get screwed up anyway. Not that that's necessarily a bad thing, it's just something I thought I'd pass along.
• I learned that cedar 4x4's cost a lot more than I thought they would. And by 'more than I thought they would' I mean 'almost as much as a large landscape rock from North Dakota'. Seriously, when I saw the $20/board price tag, I actually stopped and debated the merits of living with a broken fence for the rest of my life. Then I cursed. Then I bought them. Then I went home and fixed my fence.
• I learned that ABC Sports is obsessed with Danica Patrick. We get it, she's a girl; can we go back to talking about the race now? Or do we need to spend a few more minutes gushing about how Danica is the Rosa Parks of the IRL? Gushing it is.
• I learned that when your grill runs out of propane at 6pm on Memorial Day, you won't be the only one standing in line down at the SA waiting for a refill. There were 7 of us, to be exact. And I wasn't the only one looking a little embarrassed.

I think that's everything.

The Times is running a feature on where to get good hot dogs in New York City. It mentions all the obvious places like Katz's, Gray's Papaya, Nathan's Famous, and the hordes of anonymous vendors that occupy street corners selling dirty water dogs for a buck. All the dogs sound delicious, which is kind of reassuring seeing as the article also points out that they're all [basically] the same dog, made by the same manufacturer, just cooked and served slightly differently. Who knew? Not me.

I'll admit to being somewhat of a hot dog fan. I say 'somewhat' because while I'm more than willing to go out and grab a dog for lunch, I'm not going to pack up the family and drive 45 minutes across town in search of The End All Be All Hot Dog Experience. Well, ok, I probably would, but I'd like to pretend that I wouldn't, so that should count for something. And if my casual attitude somehow disqualifies me as a credible source of Twin Cities hot dog information, I'm fully prepared to accept that.

Over the years I've learned what I like in a hot dog. In my case, it's a garlicy, all beef dog with a nice snappy casing. It should to be warmed in water - but never boiled - and if it's been crisped-up a little bit on a [flattop] grill, you'll get no complaints from me. For buns, I prefer steamed, not toasted. For toppings, I'll just take whatever I'm in the mood for. Sometimes that's a classic Chicago dog, sometimes it's chili and cheese, and sometimes it's just mustard and a little onion. In reality, I could probably be talked into almost anything. Funny how that works.

Go out and try these places:

• Joey D's - Two guys who claimed to be brothers opened a 'Chicago style' eatery in South Minneapolis back in the mid-90's and I've been a fan ever since. The Vienna dogs are superb, the Italian Beef is ridiculously good (get it with sweets) and they even have an outside patio. Downside: the 2 dog and pop $5 special is long gone and the fries are crap. But don't let that keep you away. [3101 East 42nd Street]
• Franks a Million - Downtown skyway dogs at their finest. They have two sizes of dog: small and large. I [obviously] go with the large and I take it one of two ways: Chicago or chili. The chili is so big and messy that it's best to just give in and eat it with a knife and fork. The burgers and fries aren't bad either. (Note that there used to be another branch over on 3rd street in the warehouse district, but it's now the 112 Eatery.) (Note also that if you're thinking that 'The Walking Dog' in the Northstar Foodcourt is good enough, you're wrong.) [330 S 2nd Ave - Skyway Level]
• Wagners Drive-In - A suburban drive-in where they still have car hops. Yep, you heard me, car hops. They also have burgers and malts and all that other crap you'd expect to find at a drive-in, including some pretty damn fine hot dogs. They're not the best it town, but they're far from the worst, and the whole drive-in shtick is worth a few bonus points. Downside: the chicken philly is hands down the worst in town and on sunny summer evenings it can be an absolute madhouse. [3712 Quebec Avenue South, Hopkins]
• The Wienery - My first 'real' hot dog experience was when I stumbled into a filthy west bank hole-in-the-wall named The Wienery. Inside I found 3 tables, 9 stools, and a bearded owner who served up perfect Vienna Beef dogs 5 or 6 different ways and hand cut the fries when he saw you walk through the door. He'd also scream like hell if he saw someone trying to put catsup on a Chicago dog, but whatever, it was part of the charm and for a poor college student, it couldn't have been better. Today, sadly, the place has changed hands a few times and has gone down hill considerably. At least it had the last time I was in there a few years ago. So I guess I don't necessarily recommend you go there, I just wanted to note it for historical reasons. If you've been recently, feel free to let me know that it's gotten better. [414 Cedar Ave S, Minneapolis]

This year is now officially the year I gave up trying to grow tomatoes in our backyard garden. It's kind of a bummer. They grew fine for the first few seasons after we moved in, but a couple of nearby trees have now grown large enough that they more or less shade the garden 24 hours a day. And from what I understand, 24-hour shade does not necessarily promote robust tomato growth. Stupid shade.

Before I totally throw in the tomato towel, however, I've decided to try keeping a few plants in pots up by the house in an area that I've observed to be at least "partly sunny". It's far from the full sun panacea that they'd probably prefer, but it's better than nothing. I've also concluded that - at least on weekends - I might shuttle the containers around the yard, maximizing the sun they'd receive. But that seems so ridiculous that I'm not sure I'll actually do it. They're just vegetables, right? Don't I have more important things to do than schlep flower pots around? Is a BLT made from tomatoes you grew yourself really *that* much better than any other BLT on earth?

Of course it is, silly.

In the week leading up to Earth Day this year, the Strib ran a multi-day/multi-part story that focused on All Things Recycling. I'm pretty sure it started on a Sunday, because I remember reading the first (of 5?) articles in the series at the dining room table while stuffing down a bowl of Honeycomb and I only do that on weekends. I also remember thinking that I wasn't going to waste my time reading the rest of the series because - duh - articles about recycling are boring.

At least I thought they were boring until I accidentally read the 'follow-up' article in the paper last Saturday. That one was downright interesting and, dare I say, even a little... scandalous?

The follow-up was a Q&A type thing that answered a bunch of questions readers had submitted over the course of the series. They was mostly dumb questions ("What happens to tuna cans collected for recycling?" Uhh, they get recycled?) but there were a couple of interesting ones. This one in particular caught my eye:

Q: You wrote that Anchor Glass factory in Shakopee is getting half as much recycled glass now than it did just a few years ago because recycling companies are sending glass to landfills. How can this be? Isn't there a law that prevents recyclable materials from going to landfills?

A: The glass ends up at landfills because it's broken and colors are mixed, a form the factory cannot use. For glass recycling, glass must be separated by color: clear, brown and green or blue. It doesn't matter if it's broken. Under state law, material picked up for recycling cannot go to a landfill, except if there's no market for it.

Recently, Waste Management Recycle America Alliance introduced a new form of collecting recycling in the state and it results in significant amounts of mixed broken glass. There is no market for that, so Waste Management, and other recycling companies with broken mixed glass, can put it in their landfills.

An optical scanner can sort broken mixed glass back into a recyclable form, but there are no optical scanners in Minnesota. The nearest one is in Chicago.

Allow me to summarize. This will undoubtedly be longer than the answer above, so hold on.

There are areas of the Twin Cities where residents can just dump all their recyclables into a big ass 'recycling only' garbage can that the recycling company (Waste Management) provides for them. This system is known as 'single sort' because it only requires people to bulk sort the stuff that's recyclable from the stuff that isn't. Single sort differs from the other common 'two sort' system - which requires residents to separate paper products from glass and metal - and the old school 'multi sort' system that required a different bag for each color of glass and flavor of soup can.

People who live in the single sort world obviously love it because they don't have to sort much. But you know who loves it more? Garbage companies. And you know why? Because their garbage trucks are outfitted with mechanical arms designed to pick up and dump the big ass rolling recycling cans. Bigger, faster, stronger, victory.

Now here's the scandal part. When you use a robot arm to violently dump a bunch of glass bottles and jars into the back of a garbage truck you're most likely gonna end up with a bunch of broken glass. And unfortunately the machines that can sort broken glass are a) very expensive to build and maintain and b) in Chicago.

Oh crap, what's the garbage company supposed to do with all that broken, mixed color glass?

Landfill it, duh. See, under Minnesota law, the garbage companies are free to landfill anything they can't find a buyer for. And seeing as nobody is really interested in buying a bunch of unsorted broken glass, it's perfectly legal for the garbage company to bury it in the ground EVEN THOUGH THEY WERE THE ONES WHO BROKE IT IN THE FIRST PLACE. That, my friends, is a what we in the business like to call a 'loophole'.

Here in Caketown, we use the 'two sort' system. (Our city recycling contract is with BFI, not Waste Management.) I wrote to the Edina Recycling Boss and asked her if our glass ends up in landfills, too. Here's what she said:

[T]he two sort system is more manual labor/hand dumped into the recycling truck so there is less breakage... Last year we collected over 5,000 tons of paper and rigids that were recycled. The total amount that was sorted as not recyclable was just a little over 1%.

(I guess I have no idea how much better the 1% number is, but it sounds good, so kudos for us.)

In summary, if you're still reading this and you live in a 'single sort' town, maybe it's time you did some bitchin' to you city and/or garbage company. Just 'cause it's easy and cheap for them doesn't mean it's right.

The recycling stream: An update [strib]
Recycling Feature Home Page [strib]
Green Guardian [gg] - Guide for disposing of crazy stuff in the Twin Cities
Edina Recycling [edina] - Solvei rocks!

I always get a kick out of people asking me what I do for a living. Tonight, for example, this realtor lady came over to talk with us about selling our house and we were laughing and having a good time and then on her way out she stopped and asked me, "What is it that you do for a living?"

I gave her my standard reply, which is to say I told her I do "computer stuff". It's a nice generic answer that lets people believe they think they understand what I do without going into details. I also usually throw in a little air-keyboarding gesture to show her what daily work routine is like. I rock.

Unfortunately, her reaction was the same as most everyone else's is. She said "Oh" and then she got this kind of pained expression on her face. It was one of those expressions that says "I pity you and/or I ate some bad chinese food for lunch and you'll never know what this expression really means." It's an expression that always makes me think, "What the hell is so bad about 'computer stuff'?" I mean, seriously, I have a mouse pad with a built in wrist rest. That thing is *awesome*. Why don't you people understand that?!?

Well I'm sick of the mystery expressions and the "great! can you help me fix my printer?" follow-up questions. It's time to move on. It's time for something different. It's time to start the hunt for a new fake career. Something with pizzazz. Something people will identify with. Something that will cause them to stop and say "Wow! I've always wanted to do that, but I never thought I'd have the time to learn to drive a monster truck while training to be an astronaut, so instead I became an accountant." Stuff like that.

Inventing a fake career at this point in my life is a serious step. I feel so brave.

Today was the first day that the carpool lanes on 394 were open to single-rider vehicles willing to pay for the privilege of driving on them. Today was also the first day that I kicked myself for not immediately getting off my ass and buying one of the pre-paid fare transponders that are the only acceptable method of payment. (I say 'fare transponder', but really the thing is called a 'MnPass'. That name is dumb, however, so I'm trying not to use it. Better names would have been 'BlueOxPass', 'TicketToRide', or 'PayPal'.)

To be fair, I never planned on buying a MnPass. The last thing I need is some money machine in my car tempting me to spend $4 to save 6 minutes on my commute. I have a hard enough time walking passed the Twix cabinet at the office without going face-down in cookie crunch, so I'm sure I'd cave when pressed for time on the ride home. Resistance is futile.

And then today it rained. And when it rains, traffic sucks. And when traffic sucks I take my sneaky back way out of downtown, a route that normally skips me far enough down the road that I don't get caught up in anything major. Well today it avoided jack squat. I got to the bottom of the entrance ramp and looked up at the freeway and all I could see were red taillights. And they weren't the "headlights on for safety" red that I was hoping they'd be, they were an endless ocean of "stop and go" red. Curses.

Then I looked over at the new MnPass scoreboard that lists the real time dynamic fare for using the HOV lanes.

And it said $0.25 to Hwy 100.

Twent-ee-five-effing-cents. That's only half a Twix bar.

I thought about throwing a quarter at the sign and pleading stupidity if I got pulled over, but there were like 4 news helicopters hovering overhead and I was worried I'd get caught on tape and labeled the "dumbass in the jeep who didn't know you had to buy a pass". And you know they'd replay that clip a million times because everyone loves a dumbass. Well screw you Fox9, I know I need the pass, I just didn't think it would be so cheap so I didn't bother to get one.

But I will now. Hells yeah.

Get Your MnPass [mnpass]
Minnesota's first electronic toll road opens [pipress]

I read some letter to the editor in the Strib this morning from a dude who is worked up over the education funding debate. He was parroting the "how much is enough?" argument that grosses me out so much because it's naïve and cliché and obvious and frankly, just kind of sad. I mean, nobody ever asks that about transportation funding, do they? ("Just build more roads, dammit!") Well then why single out education all the time? What's with all the resentment over spending money on schools? Does it all come from people who don't have kids or something? Or just angry talk radio listeners? Seriously, I don't get it.

So tonight I sat down at the computer and did a little reading and it's all so big and complicated and - near as I can tell - per pupil spending has actually decreased in real dollars under Tpaw, so maybe the question should actually be "how many cuts are enough?". And then I thought "ohh, snap, this is gonna be fun to write."

But then - yuck - I don't want to write some stupid political entry when today was the day that it finally stopped raining and the sun came out and I got to work in the yard for a while and we walked down to the park and I saw a mama blue jay sitting on her nest and it was awesome. (Yes, I know, blue jays are 'mean' birds, but still, it's neat to see, so shut it.) So instead I trashed the few paragraphs I had written and went and listened to some tunes and read for a while.

Much better.

While driving home tonight I saw a kid - late into his teens - walking down the sidewalk carrying a bow and arrow. It wasn't one of those monster compound hunting bows or anything, but it was still a bow and it appeared to be quite capable of shooting an arrow at a high rate of speed. I can say that with confidence because when I was a kid I had a Red Bear fiberglass kiddie bow that I used to shoot pop cans with, so I'm obviously still an expert assessor of all things pertaining to archery.

I was driving on 36th Street, just west of Hennepin, so I assumed the dude was just walking home from the archery range down at Lake Calhoun, but even with such a simple explanation it was still kind of a bizarre sight. And by "bizarre" I mean "hold-up, isn't that illegal?". I mean, you'd never see a dude walking down the sidewalk with a shotgun over his shoulder, right? (That's *gotta* be illegal, at least here in the city. Maybe it's normal out in "country" where, from what I hear, everyone already has concealed carry permits to save them from bears or rattlesnakes or somethin' and that always seems kinda silly to me, but hey, whatever, I saw Red Dawn, too, and that shit could still happen, so stay ready.)

Anyway, back to bows on the street. Assuming the bow is, in fact, illegal, would a crossbow also be illegal? I'm gonna say yes, based on it also being a missile weapon. Well then what about a big ass two-handed sword, you ask? I still say illegal. Unless it's +1/+2 vs Canadian Geese. There are a lot of geese down at Calhoun, and seriously, who doesn't think we couldn't stand to lose a few?

All I know is that if some dumb goose tries to get between me and the fish and chips stand, sword or no, one of us is going down.

We've been pseudo-actively shopping for a new house for the last few months. We don't have an agent helping us look or anything, but we've been to a bunch of open houses and showings and we've driven a bunch of neighborhoods and crap like that. We've also had a couple of builder dudes over to talk about adding on to our house. That's what I like to call Plan B. The 'b' stands for "jesus christ it costs a lot to add on to your house".

It's old news that houses cost a lot of money, but I've decided to up the bubble talk ante and declare that the current state of the housing market has become totally insane. We'll be out on a walk and see some cute little bungalow type place for sale and it'll turn out to be listed for $600,000 or something crazy like that. How is that even possible? Is Morningside sitting on an oil field? (Hint: no.) Is the warming house at Weber Field really that great? (Hint: maybe.) And who the hell is paying that price? (Hint: based on how fast houses are selling, tons of people.)

I've also decided that I'm outrageously picky. Everyone keeps telling me that buying a house is about "compromise", but from what I remember it's mostly about "leaving work to go look at some dump that doesn't appeal to you at all" and then later "barfing because you spent so much money". If I'm gonna barf, I shouldn't have to compromise, simple as that. History dictates that my attitude will change once I'm sick of searching, but I don't see that happening for a looong time. Unless there's a dishwasher involved, of course. Never underestimate the power of convenience.

Friday night we loaded up the family and headed over to District del Sol for the big Cinco de Mayo street party thing they do every year. It's two big days of concerts and food and culture all smashed into like an 8-block section of West St. Paul. I'm sure Garrison Keillor loves it.

Friday night featured a lowrider car show, so we checked that out. The evening's main event was a competition to see who had the most tricked out hydraulics on their car, so we watched that for a while, too. The cars were crazy, but most of them broke down during the competition and the mechanical delays were kinda lame. Not as lame as the KDWB DJ who in charge of music for the event, however, because he was super lame. Brian McKnight is not hydraulic showdown music you doof.

It was a beautiful night and there were like a million people there. By the time we were done with all the car gawking it was getting kinda late, so rather than fight the crowds we headed back to our car and picked up some take-out mexican on the way home. The wait time for tacos in Minneapolis was much shorter.

This evening after dinner I did a few dishes and then sat down on the living room floor for some quality play time with my kid. At first we were both really into what we were doing, but after 15 or so minutes I started getting a little bored. So I'm sitting there, debating to myself about what we should play next, and suddenly he stands up, gives me the 'all done' sign and marches over to some other toy and starts playing with it.

That's when I concluded that I have the attention span of an 18-month old. Well, either that or my kid has the attention span of a 31-year old.

The weather has warmed up so much this week that I easily found enough motivation to drag my bike out of the garage and pedal my way to work this morning. It's been probably 8 months since I last rode in, but thankfully a winter full of running around pretending I can still play soccer has apparently kept my chicken legs in good enough shape to get me to my office in around 30 minutes. Who knew?

It's a great little ride: 7.5 [mostly flat] miles that takes me up the west side of Lake Calhoun to the Kennelworth trail into downtown. It's scenic and it's peaceful and sometimes you even get to see a train go by on the tracks that run beside the path. (Trains are cool, duh.) Other than the area around my house, the rest is pretty much all trails. It really couldn't be much better.

There weren't too many other people out this morning, which surprised me because a) as I mentioned, it was beautiful out and b) there's been a lot of hype this week about using alternative transportation, climaxing with tomorrow's Commuter Challenge Bike/Walk to Work Day. I'm not exactly sure why they scheduled it for cinco de mayo, but if it's because they want to give me free margaritas for riding my bike to work, well then I'll take 4, please.

The one downside about riding in is that every time I do I convince myself that I need a new bike. Don't get me wrong, my fat tire mountain bike is a lot of fun, but when I'm sitting upright, pedaling into a headwind and struggling to go 12 miles an hour and one of those tight-jersey wearing bike wieners blasts by doing 30 without even breaking a sweat, I start to crunch the numbers in my head. I'm not looking to be one of "those guys", I just want something with thin tires and pedals with clips and maybe a little bell I can ring when I pass people. Is that so much to ask?

Oh, and I suppose another downside is that when you get to work you have to find a place to park your bike. I normally just bring it up to my office, but the building management has always hated when people bring bikes into the building so I have to sneak in the loading dock and take the freight elevator. This year they responded by building a secure "bike room" in the basement, something I've seen before in other buildings and always thought was a good idea, which it is in this case, too, except for the $60/year fee they're extorting from anyone who want to use it. Huge boo. Back up to my office I go.

Bike Safely to Work Day [sharetheroadmn] - It's next week. I guess this week is only for unsafe biking.
Hennepin County Bicycle Trail Maps [mn]

I heard an interview with Bill Gates on NPR over the weekend. Or maybe it was this morning, I can't really remember. The conversation touched on many different topics, including his recent [controversial] comments about how the American educational system is broken and that we're doomed as a country because we're not teaching our kids the right stuff and/or simply not teaching them at all. Comforting stuff, especially as a parent. (Full disclosure: he makes some good points.)

At one point during the interview, the host dude brought-up the next version of Windows - code named 'Longhorn' - and asked Gates to talk about the new features users should expect when they upgrade in 2009. Gates talked about a couple of different ones, taking time in particular to highlight how much better the built-in windows searching capabilities will be. That'll be nice. Or at least it would have been nice to have 4 years ago. Now it'll just be two years behind everyone else's.

Gates also touched on searching the internet, which I found more interesting. Paraphrased, he said something like:

In the future we'll look back at how we searched now, where you enter some search terms and get pages and pages of links back, as being crazy. The search engines will just know the answer.

Google is already kind of doing what Gates is talking about. Search for "what is the population of Minnesota", for example, and you'll see that the answer is actually the first thing returned by Google (with a source, natch). I guess that's cool in a "look what we can do" sort of way, but I'm not sure it's a Good Thing when you extrapolate it beyond concrete examples like population statistics. Seriously, haven't people been bitching for years about how the internet is making us dumber because we're too quick to draw conclusions based on the fist three results Google returns? And isn't the internet full of inaccurate information and even outright lies? And now I'm supposed to be thrilled that the future of search involves a search engine force-feeding me an answer that it determined to be the 'right' one, saving me the troublesome task of - you got it- searching for myself?

Then again, maybe someday we'll be able to search for "how to fix the broken American education system" and get an answer in 0.18 seconds. That'll be mint.

I'm messing around with the look and feel a bit. Biggest change is that I've decided to move the little suggestini links from over on the sidebar into the primary content area. The way I implemented them was becoming a bother to deal with and now it should be nice and easy. And yes, I stole the idea from kottke. And yes, I know that's probably somehow stupid because he's a "popular" blogger and people will think I'm trying to "sell out" and be like him, but in reality I don't think I've seen another blog that does the little suggested links like he does so maybe it's really not that cool in which case I'm almost anti-selling out. Sweet.

If something doesn't format well or play nicely please let me know.